Westmount welcomes Karen Tui Boyes to lead the Teacher Academy

JANUARY 24, 2017 / Articles

Karen Boyes has been a colourful, hugely
valuable consultant around Westmount School campuses for over a decade. Her seasonal
contribution has been to deliver her world-renowned Study Skills workshops for
students.

Now she is taking on a full-time role as
Director of the Teacher Academy, and will become a perennial feature of our
teaching and learning system.

It’s a big change for an educator who has
developed wide-ranging expertise and business interests. Karen is a Certified
Speaking Professional (CSP) – the highest international accreditation for
speakers worldwide. She has worked with over 200 organisations worldwide, and
presented in 18 countries. She is an author and the creator of the Teachers Matter Magazine, Teachers Matter
Conference, Kids Matter Conference, Study Smart Workshops and the Habits of
Mind Bootcamp. She is also CEO of Spectrum Education, Affiliate Director of the
Institute for the Habits of Mind, NZ Educator of the Year 2014, NZ Speaker of
the Year 2013, NZ Business Woman of the Year 2001. Her success has been fueled
by early work as a teacher, watching how the excitement, passion and wonderment
of a six-seven year old starts to die.

“I
wondered what we were doing to turn them off, and I wanted to turn it around.”

Now Karen sees the opportunity to have
greater impact on best education practice, in building the Teacher Academy as a
model for world-class teacher development.

“I’ve been like a one hit wonder. I go into
schools and inspire teachers and students. Now I can do something more long
term. I can see practice changing.”

Karen has a vision for an end result that
she describes as Excellence and likens
it to Sir Peter Jackson’s private theatre in Wellington. “It’s not something
you know until you walk in there. It just oozes excellence.”

The challenge of the vision is that “we
don’t know what we don’t know”.

Her plan is to focus on personal and
professional development. The foundational guideline is we are all Learning to
Learn, teachers included.

“I have a very wholistic outlook on
teaching. Understanding of Self is extremely important. As adults we all go
through highs and lows, as our learners do. Personal development is important,
and there are always opportunities for growth.”

Professional Learning Groups established in
the Teacher Academy in 2016 will be structured to deepen practice, to get better
results. Masterclass formats will enable teachers to learn from each other, and
for learning to be personalised and responsive to needs.

The priorities are Self-Directed Learning,
using Languages of Learning and Cultures of Thinking, and preparing students to
be workplace-ready.

The three strategies are:

Reflect on practice

Reboot to grow further

Renew our practice with new
skills

Karen says all schools have a
burning need for new skills, but the will is dampened by fear of failure and an
inability to take risks. “That’s partly the Tall Poppy Syndrome and partly it’s
the bell curve that says half will fail. But if you want students to take
risks, then the teacher has to as well.”

To provide guidance on
risk-tasking, she references an American military philosophy, where soldiers
are trained to work between the rumble strips. “I like that analogy for
teachers too – how can I further my practice and stay within the rumble strips?”